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Nov 29 2018 
Loyal customers = Brand advocates?
Picture this. Your brand is in SERIOUS NEED of a boost and you need to do SOMETHING to move it forward. Let’s be fair here, not everyone has the budget to rope in an A-lister celebrity to endorse your brand.
So now what? What do you do? How do you get people to endorse you?
Start with baby steps, i.e. with your existing customers. You need people to trust your brand, and a good place to start will always be your existing customers. Especially the ones who make that repeat purchase.
They are the fans of your brand. They will tell you how much they love you and they show it by buying the products you’re endorsing, many a times neglecting things like the price or even their own personal requirement. Your product is their want and not necessarily their need.
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For example: Those Apple customers that buy the latest iPad, Macbook Pro, iPhones, iPods and anything and everything that has ‘i’ in it. Whether it’s time to change their existing gadgets or not, they are right there, buying the latest piece of technology that Apple has to provide.
But as Steven Knox from Proctor and Gamble said, “Victory in marketing does not happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand”
Brand advocates are those people who have no gains, no incentives, no motives, all in all, no reason to sell your brand to others. They will praise your brand for no personal gain and sometimes even without being a loyal customer. And THERE lies your most important resource.
For your brand to use the oldest marketing technique in the world, which is mouth-to-mouth marketing, you need to convert these existing customers into your brand advocates. And there are 2 very important reasons to do that.
Advocates are a brand’s best friend
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As a brand, you definitely will encounter retractors, specially today, when everyone is so verbal and vocal on social media. But before you have thought of a counter-attack and stepped in, there are already people defending your brand with passion. They have retaliated and done everything in their power to shoot down these retractors. They are your besties without benefits and that will always speak volume for your brand, sometimes better than you stepping up and clarifying.
All gain, minimum cost
And they did it for NO BENEFITS. No big fat cheques were given away and no incentives provided (yet). You did not have to break your FDs and piggy banks for the cause. THIS IS YOUR WIN-WIN SITUATION, WHICH YOU NEED TO GRASP WITH BOTH HANDS.
All this is well and good, but how do you make these God-sent people to endorse you?
Good service
Numbers ain’t everything! Retain your customers with good service as well. They’ll thank you then, and remember you later. Especially when talking to others. And voilà! Your job is done!
Offers & incentives
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We all like free goodies, don’t we? So do your brand advocates. They won’t ask for the free stuff, but they are definitely happy when they get it. This will make your brand stay in their mind and keep cropping up in conversations.
Don’t always focus on your potential customers, your existing customer is where the real gold lies. Nurture them to help you grow and reach the bigger market. After all in-house, no-budget influencers are every brand’s dream and all you need to do is get them is get into the vigilante mode.
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Oct 19 2018 
Social Media Adverts: Why does your business need it?
Gone are the days when brands would scoff at having social media promotions. We have successfully stepped into the age where each brand needs to have a strategy to promote itself through social media, thus leading the brand to reach its maximum potential possible. A specialist team, a plan of action and separate budgets, social media is slowly moving into playing a very important part from a marketing viewpoint.
Why? We as millennials have moved from ‘I will ask dad about it’ to ‘just Google it’. Over billions of users are reported monthly through social media portals. Searching for the latest thing to buy, to eat, to do, people today are using their smartphones for looking at options as well as using the devices for approaching the brand for purchase. We truly have become a generation that ‘look online’ to lead our lives.
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That’s from the customer’s point of view. What about a brand’s perspective? How do you get noticed in this plethora of options, especially if people aren’t looking for you? How do you, as a brand, grab their attention saying, “Hey, if you’re looking for options, I exist!”
Advertisements or ‘ads’ are now available on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even YouTube, which generates not just viewership but also helps translate a good chunk of this viewership into an actual business.
So, What do these ‘paid promotions’ do for your business?
1. Information and broadcasting
You have billions of prospective customers and many thousands of competitors on the same portal, doing the same things as you are. How do people know you exist in this sea of brands?
The first step of turning a person into a prospective buyer is letting him know the existence and the details of your brand. Organically your audience will grow at a steady pace but by putting some money behind your posts, you can reach a wider audience in a short span, thus helping you attract more leads.
2. Affecting decision making
With thousands of brands competing for that attention everyday in every way, how do you tip the scale in your direction? With targeting the right audience with your ads, you can leave an impression in the mind of a buyer. Subconsciously they appreciate your effort and eventually what you are selling.
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Whether they see your ads on multiple platforms or multiple ads on a single platform, subconsciously, your brand identity gets stuck with your audience.
3. Higher returns with your budget
With traditional advertisements, there are more misses than hits. They cost you a bomb and the chances for it to result in leads are slim. There is no clear targeting, whereas with social media adverts, you can precisely set your audience, thus increasing your leads as well as you save on the lead cost.
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4. Retargeting existing customers
A lot of times your customers might just add your products to the cart or view certain products but not make the purchase. Through social media retargeting, you can reach out to them again, get them to review the product(s) and help push the sale further.
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With varied options available through multiple channels, your prospective customers can change decisions before you can blink your eye. So turn to social media advertisements to make you the last decision they make before they
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